Lamar Hayslett was among 27 children in Illinois to die of abuse or neglect in DCFS’ last reporting year whose families had previous contact with the agency, a Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ examination of records has found.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services had its budget cut earlier this year by $90 million. Now, it’s expected to get half of that money back, which means the scheduled layoffs of 375 workers across the state may not happen.

A new media analysis finds caseloads for Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigators are too high.The Chicago Tribune reports Sunday that the biggest trouble spots are in Cook County, the counties around Chicago and in southern Illinois.

Some wards of the state end up in psychiatric hospitals like Chicago Lakeshore Hospital. Over the years, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has made great strides in finding homes for abandoned, neglected and traumatized kids.

A businessman who was paid millions of dollars by the state of Illinois to help children, addicts and other needy people actually did little or no work for the money, investigators said Monday, and he got away with it partly because of his close relationship with "Mac" — Erwin McEwen — the recently